Taught In English

There is no language prerequisite for courses at this language level.

Course description: The course is organized around a series of trips and visits, each one focusing on a period of the European culture.
-Bruges shows medieval towns created a new economy which slowly destroyed the feudal society;
-how wars of religion transform Antwerp , a vibrant humanist center in the 16th c., into a Counter Reformation center;
-meanwhile more tolerant policies turn Amsterdam into the first capitalist economy;
-and Paris follows the opposite evolution from feudalism to absolutism which will be challenged by 18th c. Enlightenment and revolutionary movements before becoming cultural pole in the 19th c. ;
-finally how nations run to war in 1914, which brings disillusionment.

Course objectives:
-discover the past, through what can still be seen of it today: the configuration of a city, a building, a painting, a sculpture, books;
-understand how the economic situation, the social and political organization, people's mentality, military or other events combined to create a certain type of civilization;
-examine how later generations have interpreted this past in light of their own political concerns.

Grade weighting scheme - Exams (Midterm and Final): 30% each
Student Oral presentation: 15%
Paper: 15%
Participation: 10%
(All costs for the trips are to be paid by the participants).